A well-designed resume immediately stands out, and invites potential employers to read more.
Google is an excellent example of how design and functionality work together. For for most people, Google is the essence of an engineer’s creation – sparse, usable and to the point. Engineers the world over should be flattered that so many people have claimed that Google’s homepage was designed by their engineers – because out of any search engine, Google is probably the simplest, most credible and easy to use (and, coincidentally, the world’ largest search engine, and one of it’s most successful companies).
Simplicity does not equal a lack of design
The simplicity of Google’s homepage is an excellent lesson for resume design: more is not necessarily ‘more’. And a lack of self-evident ‘design’ does not mean that a professional has not given quite a bit of thought to the layout of elements on the page, and how to make that page function well for different kinds of users.
Resume design for engineers
An engineer’s resume is going to be simple, sparse and to the point. Since most engineers use quite a bit of technical data, there needs to be white space to make the document more readable. Even though manuals are densly written, there is no reason a resume should be written in a way that makes it more difficult to read. Remember, a resume is not your life story – a resume gets the interview. An engineer’s resume should sell that person’s skills, presenting them as a professional, and get their foot in the door (with a little momentum).
